MK bounce back to snatch cross country title

SOME days it goes well, and some days it goes badly, but on Saturday it went very well for Marshall Milton Keynes Athletic Club.

Trailing Bedford by almost 200 points, the team needed a great performance at the last Chiltern Cross Country match of the season in Wing to take the league title – and that is exactly what they did.

What’s more they did it in style to win the five match series by 966 points over Bedford, with both the senior men’s and women’s teams clinching overall victory as well.

In addition to that there were 2nd place finishes for the U13 boys and U20 women, and 3rd places for the U20 men and U15 boys.

The club also claimed two superb individual gold medals for the series from Alfie Yabsley (M13) and John Skelton (M60), with silver medals for Lara Bromilow (FS), Chad Lambert (M20) and Dominic Murphy (M13), and bronze for Gemma Childs (F17) and Fran Malin (F45).

The senior men, after their slight lapse last time out, returned to their best by making it four out of five with a commanding 176 point victory over Harrow, beating them to the title too.

There was another great run from 2nd placed Chad Lambert who led both the senior and junior teams home in 32m 52s, making light of the cold and snow covered course.

Despite only having two thirds of a team, the juniors finished 3rd both on the day and overall, while the veterans were 5th on day and 6th in the league, with 68th Robin Dowswell 39m 21s, 80th David Hall 40m 30s and 96th Chris Mahon 41m 22s.

The senior women also took top place overall but lost out marginally by four points to Bearbrook on the day and once again the team was led back with a great run from 3rd placed Lara Bromilow 24m 50s with 11th Wendy Webber 26m 03s followed by leading veteran 22nd Frances Malin 28m 23s, 32nd Diane Baldwin 29m 29s and 36th Maria Calleia 30m 13s as the veterans grabbed 3rd on the day, moving up to 6th overall.

There was only one U17 man out for the club as Ollie Lum finished 15th in 25m 59s surprisingly taking 7th in the team competition, seeing them finishing the league in 6th.

The U20/17 women found their previous winning form to leapfrog Luton into 2nd spot overall, helped by the return of Beth Swords to her correct age group as she claimed 2nd in 19m 25s, with 5th Jasmine Finlay 19m 53s, 7th Jess Hall 21m 28s and 10th Emily Bousfield 22m 37s.

Also punching above their weight were the U15 boys taking 2nd on the day to finish 3rd in the league, with 5th Charlton Kerr 16m 03s first back followed by 7th Owen Seamark 16m 11s, 10th Harry Morton 16m 17s and 11th Sam Cadigan 16m 34s.

Similarly the U15 girls had a good afternoon with a fine 2nd place to move them to 4th overall with an individual 4th for Amy Radford 14m 33s, 7th Amy Botham 15m 22s, 8th Sophia Cliffe 15m 30s and 12th Lucy Hacking 15m 51s.

Ironically in the U13 boys race, Alfie Yabsley 10m 09s recorded his worst result of the season, a still impressive 3rd, but he was still the clear individual winner of his age group overall. Close behind in 4th was Dominic Murphy 10m 17s, 16th Cameron Beazley-Clarke 10m 41s, and 27th Ed Jennings 11m 31s.

The under-strength U13 girls ended up 5th on the day but held on to 4th spot overall thanks to fine running by 3rd Lauren Murphy 11m 01s, 10th Lauren Presswell 11m 41s and 16th Sophie Botham 11m 58s.

Pictured is Lara Bromilow on her way to 2nd place overall in her age group.